As long as we're discussing changes for next season, let me throw one out that should be pretty non-controversial.
We all know that the draft, as it is currently constituted, is a vast crap-shoot. Your scout may not say the same things about a player as my scout, and a third scout may yet say something entirely different. We've all seen cases where the player your scouted as a one-star career minor leaguer is taken with the third or fourth pick in the draft while you're amazed that a "five-star" prospect is still available early in the second round. It's one thing to say that your scout can't predict future talent, but it's altogether something different to say that there is such a disparity in evaluating *current* talent.
Of course, if we had a feeder league, things might be just a tad different. Perhaps one scout will stay that a starter is a two-star talent and another scout will say he's a four-star guy -- but both will agree that he went 6-2 with a 2.97 ERA, 65 K, 11BB in 57 innings. IOW, the stats generated by the feeder league will give you something objective, rather than subjective to look at. Of course college stats don't necessarily translate into big-league stats, but it's got to be a step up from what we have now.
That being said, I was thinking about opening up a college feeder league. It's not going to help us for the upcoming draft, but it should provide two benefits for additional seasons:
1. The availability of objective data to aid in decision making
2. The ability to see who will be coming down the pipeline in the next year or two. True, there will be some players in the draft who weren't in the feeder league, but it's better than right now where the future is totally blind to us.
So, what do you say to a college feeder league? 50-60 games in a season?
Zev
We added feeder leagues (one HS and one college) in the OEL and I think they're great. But, I'm kind of strange, so take that for what it's worth.
ReplyDeleteI'm in favor of adding a feeder league and I leave the details (schedule length, number of teams, etc.) up to others. Having gone through adding it once though, I'm happy to help out however I can.
I am fully in favor of such and applaud Zev's bringing the idea forward.
ReplyDeleteI might suggest that we have one high school and one college, though. Players come into the draft both ways.
I'm with Nate & Mack in favor of this, and also am fully in favor of making Mack do more work if possible.
ReplyDeleteHey! I hadn't thought of that. It's like a little bonus!
ReplyDeleteLOL @ Paul. I concur.
ReplyDeleteI'm in favor, as well.
ReplyDeleteI am for this if we do both High School and College leagues. In the other two leagues I am in, it has made the draft much much better as the scouts have something to scout.
ReplyDeleteAnother vote in favor of a feeder league. I'm ok with it only being college, but both are nice to have. Also in OOTP XI, there's a real progression of players, i.e. if they don't get drafted out of high school, they can continue on to college and develop further.
ReplyDeleteI agree to the idea of feeder leagues. It would only speed up the development of players and give some better measure of chance of making the bigs.
ReplyDelete